VI: The Prophets' Visions

Locusts Counterfeit court

a rival system tormenting the unsealed

Root
Joel 2:4-5 · arbeh (H697)
Old Testament chain
  1. Exod 10:12-15
  2. Judg 6:5
  3. Joel 1:6
  4. Joel 2:4-5
  5. Nah 3:15-17
  6. Rev 9:3-10
New Testament
Rev 3:1; Rev 9:1-11; Rev 9:3-6; Rev 9:7-8; Rev 9:7; Rev 9:8; Rev 9:9; Rev 9:10; 1 John 2:22-23

Locusts first strip Egypt until "there remained not any green thing" (Exod 10:15). Midian's raiders came "as grasshoppers for multitude" (Judg 6:5), and Joel's army has "the teeth of a lion" and "the appearance of horses" with the noise of chariots (Joel 1:6; 2:4-5). Revelation's locusts are Joel's army as a symbolic rival system, read historically as Islam, a rival Abrahamic system, tormenting only the unsealed, who have nothing real to distinguish true from false. Faces like men and hair like women join force with persuasion, and the scorpion tail is the true harm: "the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail" (Isa 9:15). Literal demonic insects or attack helicopters miss that key.

From The Courtroom of Heaven, pp. 29, 129–132, 135